Ecological preserves losing biodiversity, study finds

Many of the ecological preserves created to protect sensitive species are losing biodiversity, according to a vast study published this month in the journal Nature, which provided a “health check” of preserves around the world.

Spearheaded by William Laurance, a conservation biologist at James Cook University in Cairns, Australia, the study surveyed field biologists and environmental scientists, including Erin Riley, a professor of anthropology with San Diego State who has researched the macaque monkey on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.

Laurance and his team conducted 262 interviews with the scientists, and asked them to complete 10-page questionnaires on their findings from 60 protected areas across the world’s major tropical regions of Africa, America and Asia.

The questions focused on changes in 31 animal and plant species, including primates, freshwater fish and exotic plants, at 60 preserves in 36 countries.

“The team found that around half of the reserves are experiencing a severe loss of biodiversity,” Nature reported.

Riley’s study of macaques in Lore Lindu National Park found that the animals interacted with farmers outside the boundaries of the preserve, often raiding cacao plantations to gobble the nutritious, creamy liquid in the pods.

The intelligent monkeys elude farmers’ efforts to keep them out of the crops, Riley said, but local residents respect the animals, which feature prominently in local folklore. That tolerance allows the monkeys to thrive on the interface between protected and cultivated land. But not all species fare so well in proximity to humans, she said.

Both her own work and the larger study show the importance of considering land uses around preserves, Riley said, and challenge “the idea of protected areas being this saving ark,” isolated from outside influences.

It’s important, she said, “to have realistic expectations about what protected areas can and cannot do, and a renewed conversation that while protected areas are crucial, we should be thinking about primate conservation out of protected areas.”